Two thoughts. First while the 'trinity' as it is known was not in Star Trek. I think the concept of Tanks, glass cannons, and specialists was there and would exist in space combat.
The ships meant to go fast and shoot first but not really take too much damage are great attack ships. Defiant would be one but they refitted a few solid defenses onto her hardening her glass a bit.
But the big cruisers are the ones meant to take a pounding and keep fighting. Squadron of enemies arrives? Hold. The. Line. Enterprise from ToS and TNG fit this bill.
The specialists. This would be ships not tough, not damage dealing but meant for other missions like pure science or exploration. For this I say the USS Grissom. Light and fragile science ship.
I do not count Voyager because STO classed her as a science vessel. But the way she is shown she is a smaller version of a cruiser.
No it wasn't. The Defiant had unusually high offensive power but was never shown to be any more fragile than the other hero ships. Nor were the larger ships ever describes as being specifically designed to "take a pounding" (or referred to as cruisers either). Their consoles start exploding by the third hit at the latest just like everything else. The only time a Starfleet ship genuinely tanked significant enemy fire was in the Voyager finale with the ablative armor up.
All Starfleet ships are categorized as explorers or science vessels (or not categorized at all), except the Defiant-class which got the euphemism "escort" that STO expands to all Starfleet tac ships. And they can all do pretty much everything.
And my personal thought is that the DPS balance was effectively to bring the power curve back into a manageable line for a while.
They want people to keep buying but if X always gets the best result why ever buy Y or Z that come later?
By making Y and Z even better.
And then adding content where X just isn't good enough anymore.
Voyager casually spawning Gravity Wells in series (as Intrepid class in game does) to fight off the bad guys, yep, that definitely happened. /s
But really, all I was trying to do was illustrate the point @mmps1 made even further. It's a computer game that doesn't take itself too seriously - you shouldn't try to apply Vulcan-tier logic on it.
But really, all I was trying to do was illustrate the point @mmps1 made even further. It's a computer game that doesn't take itself too seriously - you shouldn't try to apply Vulcan-tier logic on it.
A dumb mechanic is a dumb mechanic is a dumb mechanic. No amount of excuses is going to change that.
Perhaps I've been under a rock(I was on hiatus the first third of the year), but how has tanking become a "casualty"?
What manner of tanking is being referred to? There are multiple ways to 'tank' in STO(and ships usually run a mix of styles):
-Resistance (self-explanatory, stack resistances via consoles and boff/captain powers)
-Buffer/Active (high capacity and heal-boosting)
-Defense/Evasion (high levels of defense tend to function like resist tanking, in addition to a lot of simply not getting hit)
-Gimmick Cycling (spamming RSP, Immunity, clicky consoles, decoys, etc.)
I still have ships that can tank the fury of the badlands when 15~ players show up at a single point, just like they used to before the revamp(and my glass cannons still die horrible deaths in the same situation, like they used to).
If this is a discussion about threat generation.. you cannot, and never have been able to, draw aggro without dishing out damage. There are TONS of tools available now that can help you draw more aggro with less output now though. If only it had been as easy as it is now back when I started.. There is a threshold where raw damage output will supersede aggro gimmicks, but you have so many tools available these days that the only ships who can/should pull aggro off of you are the ones that (probably)won't need your help in the first place(that said, I WISH there were tanks that could keep up aggro with my torp Alita).
Furthermore, a paradigm shift might be in order if you're approaching tanking in STO like a traditional fantasy MMO. There is far too much AOE spammed these days to simply be able to take all the hits for your allies. As a 'Tank", your job is to mitigate the incoming damage while keeping your allies alive - you'll likely draw aggro in the process, but you're NEVER going to be the sole person taking damage. Suppression Barrage and Unstable Warp Bubble are excellent tanking tools. Likewise, Engineering/Science Fleet, Scattering Field, Protomatter Console, etc. are also excellent ways of protecting friendlies while drawing a lot of hate unto yourself. Conversely, AoE drain builds(especially shield drain) are also another source of high threat that help friendlies(including yourself) in the process.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying personal tanking is worthless(it's VERY important if you're running a high aggro setup), just that there is more to 'tanking' than simply being a "meatshield" - if you don't bring an 'Iron Umbrella' with you, you're not going to protect anyone.
What manner of tanking is being referred to? There are multiple ways to 'tank' in STO(and ships usually run a mix of styles):
-Resistance (self-explanatory, stack resistances via consoles and boff/captain powers)
-Buffer/Active (high capacity and heal-boosting)
-Defense/Evasion (high levels of defense tend to function like resist tanking, in addition to a lot of simply not getting hit)
-Gimmick Cycling (spamming RSP, Immunity, clicky consoles, decoys, etc.)
PVE tanking is a mix of threat generation (to draw fire away from allies) and surviving said threat. The above items you mentioned alone won't make an effective PVE tank in STO, since that would essentially be "turtling".
If this is a discussion about threat generation.. you cannot, and never have been able to, draw aggro without dishing out damage.
This is true. The rebalance pretty much targeted the meta prior to S13, which also happened to be high threat builds utilizing FBP and Embassy Consoles to increase their damage output. While in my opinion the changes were good for the overall state of the game, it did hit players who like to tank pretty hard.
There are TONS of tools available now that can help you draw more aggro with less output now though.
While true, it's not that simple. Using +Th consoles now results in a DPS loss so that hinders your threat generation in a big way. Things like Threatening Stance is also used by many DPS builds for their cooldown management (via Attrition Warfare). Also, because of how proximity magnifies one's threat, "0-range" abilities (like GW, SSV, TR and "entity" based exotic damage skills) can TRIBBLE up threat generation unless you are using those skills yourself.
you're NEVER going to be the sole person taking damage.
In the end, threat generation is not absolute, so no one really expects anyone to be able to draw all fire towards himself. Most tanks will be happy to draw in 70-80% of all attacks in an advanced map or 50-60% of the attacks-in on an Elite map.
First while the 'trinity' as it is known was not in Star Trek. I think the concept of Tanks, glass cannons, and specialists was there and would exist in space combat.
The idea that a character could "taunt" enemy to attack himself instead of all the better targets out there is barely believable in fantasy where the typical enemy is monsters or dumb bandits. For starships it's absolutely ridiculous.
[..]
I don't think anyone here is pushing for a trinity. I myself do not want the game to go towards that focus. But if any of you play in Elite space maps, you'll definitely see the benefits of having a really good threat tank or two with the team.
I've played with several really good tanks in the game and I appreciate the benefits they bring towards the team. As the team performance goes up, their job gets much harder. I am for giving them the tools to better keep up with high-end players both to keep them motivated and to keep the game fun for them.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Yes, we definitely let tanks go by themselves in STFs so that they can get all the aggro. /s
Truth is, whenever me and my friends know that a "real tank" is on a team during an STF, we go in harder and more aggressive than we normally would because we know that our team's tank will be able to attract and survive the majority of the incoming enemy fire.
For example, in a Hive Elite, if I know the tank is good, I can drop in a mega-GW at the start and draw all the spheres into one big clump for the team to take out knowing that those spheres won't be focusing on me. Or I can run Threat Stance on in an Escort and stick my nose right up to my targets with full stacks of Anchor and low HP for maximum damage without getting blown up. Or our team can safely park and shoot at Terok Nor to bring down its HP and ferry boarding parties with barely a scratch to get all the optionals done in a CPE. Or grab threat from the Vaadwaur in the Benthan stage of the new and improved Korfez to buy us some time in protecting the transports.
Yes tanks are not required in PVE, but they are useful. This is especially true in Elites.
And it is easy to see in parses how effective they are no matter what map we are in.
Right now, there are maybe 5 or so people that I can trust to really be able to grab that amount of aggro. Prior to S13 there were more of them (we even had a dedicated PVE tanking channel) but very few play their tanks post S13.
Sounds to me like Patrick hasn't played a mission with an *actual* competent tank. Considering how little of them are actually left, especially post S13, I'm not surprised, but you can drop your "I know it all" attitude.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Yes, we definitely let tanks go by themselves in STFs so that they can get all the aggro. /s
Truth is, whenever me and my friends know that a "real tank" is on a team during an STF, we go in harder and more aggressive than we normally would because we know that our team's tank will be able to attract and survive the majority of the incoming enemy fire.
For example, in a Hive Elite, if I know the tank is good, I can drop in a mega-GW at the start and draw all the spheres into one big clump for the team to take out knowing that those spheres won't be focusing on me. Or I can run Threat Stance on in an Escort and stick my nose right up to my targets with full stacks of Anchor and low HP for maximum damage without getting blown up. Or our team can safely park and shoot at Terok Nor to bring down its HP and ferry boarding parties with barely a scratch to get all the optionals done in a CPE. Or grab threat from the Vaadwaur in the Benthan stage of the new and improved Korfez to buy us some time in protecting the transports.
Yes tanks are not required in PVE, but they are useful. This is especially true in Elites.
And it is easy to see in parses how effective they are no matter what map we are in.
Right now, there are maybe 5 or so people that I can trust to really be able to grab that amount of aggro. Prior to S13 there were more of them (we even had a dedicated PVE tanking channel) but very few play their tanks post S13.
as I said before though-i've never seen or been in an STF run where my NOT-A-TANK bird of prey didn't absolutely **** over that strategy just by being there.
including Hive.
your strategy only works if the team is all-fed-all-the-time. A KDF running per usual KDF practices will end up fouling up the whole strategy just at about th e point they decloak, and fire for the first time.
I've actually tested this-it doesn't happen with Romulans or cloaking feddie ships, but KDF ships become 'belle of the ball' pretty much instantly. In Core Assault, I've noted that the regulators will 'friendly fire' me too. (iow while on 'blue team' the Blue Regulator will hammer me if I am in cloak, and the core's minefields will sudden-spawn to focus me even with an enemy ship right-bloody-there actually doing damage.)
so if you REALLY wanna be an aggro-tank, grab a Bortasque and do your aggro-tank on that-the NPC threat-gen on KDF ships must be **** sky-high...
funny thing is thats pretty much canon. see just about every time a klingon decloaks in tng. klingons scare pretty much everyone.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Yes, we definitely let tanks go by themselves in STFs so that they can get all the aggro. /s
Truth is, whenever me and my friends know that a "real tank" is on a team during an STF, we go in harder and more aggressive than we normally would because we know that our team's tank will be able to attract and survive the majority of the incoming enemy fire.
For example, in a Hive Elite, if I know the tank is good, I can drop in a mega-GW at the start and draw all the spheres into one big clump for the team to take out knowing that those spheres won't be focusing on me. Or I can run Threat Stance on in an Escort and stick my nose right up to my targets with full stacks of Anchor and low HP for maximum damage without getting blown up. Or our team can safely park and shoot at Terok Nor to bring down its HP and ferry boarding parties with barely a scratch to get all the optionals done in a CPE. Or grab threat from the Vaadwaur in the Benthan stage of the new and improved Korfez to buy us some time in protecting the transports.
Yes tanks are not required in PVE, but they are useful. This is especially true in Elites.
And it is easy to see in parses how effective they are no matter what map we are in.
Right now, there are maybe 5 or so people that I can trust to really be able to grab that amount of aggro. Prior to S13 there were more of them (we even had a dedicated PVE tanking channel) but very few play their tanks post S13.
as I said before though-i've never seen or been in an STF run where my NOT-A-TANK bird of prey didn't absolutely **** over that strategy just by being there.
including Hive.
your strategy only works if the team is all-fed-all-the-time. A KDF running per usual KDF practices will end up fouling up the whole strategy just at about th e point they decloak, and fire for the first time.
I've actually tested this-it doesn't happen with Romulans or cloaking feddie ships, but KDF ships become 'belle of the ball' pretty much instantly. In Core Assault, I've noted that the regulators will 'friendly fire' me too. (iow while on 'blue team' the Blue Regulator will hammer me if I am in cloak, and the core's minefields will sudden-spawn to focus me even with an enemy ship right-bloody-there actually doing damage.)
so if you REALLY wanna be an aggro-tank, grab a Bortasque and do your aggro-tank on that-the NPC threat-gen on KDF ships must be **** sky-high...
Oh, interesting....is that what's going on with me on Brushfire and all those Son'a fighters and, uh, was it tricolbalt (?) projectiles? So funny...I could not get a hit in sideways at the dreadnought for all of those little things swarming me. LOL!
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Yes, we definitely let tanks go by themselves in STFs so that they can get all the aggro. /s
Truth is, whenever me and my friends know that a "real tank" is on a team during an STF, we go in harder and more aggressive than we normally would because we know that our team's tank will be able to attract and survive the majority of the incoming enemy fire.
For example, in a Hive Elite, if I know the tank is good, I can drop in a mega-GW at the start and draw all the spheres into one big clump for the team to take out knowing that those spheres won't be focusing on me. Or I can run Threat Stance on in an Escort and stick my nose right up to my targets with full stacks of Anchor and low HP for maximum damage without getting blown up. Or our team can safely park and shoot at Terok Nor to bring down its HP and ferry boarding parties with barely a scratch to get all the optionals done in a CPE. Or grab threat from the Vaadwaur in the Benthan stage of the new and improved Korfez to buy us some time in protecting the transports.
Yes tanks are not required in PVE, but they are useful. This is especially true in Elites.
And it is easy to see in parses how effective they are no matter what map we are in.
Right now, there are maybe 5 or so people that I can trust to really be able to grab that amount of aggro. Prior to S13 there were more of them (we even had a dedicated PVE tanking channel) but very few play their tanks post S13.
as I said before though-i've never seen or been in an STF run where my NOT-A-TANK bird of prey didn't absolutely **** over that strategy just by being there.
including Hive.
your strategy only works if the team is all-fed-all-the-time. A KDF running per usual KDF practices will end up fouling up the whole strategy just at about th e point they decloak, and fire for the first time.
I've actually tested this-it doesn't happen with Romulans or cloaking feddie ships, but KDF ships become 'belle of the ball' pretty much instantly. In Core Assault, I've noted that the regulators will 'friendly fire' me too. (iow while on 'blue team' the Blue Regulator will hammer me if I am in cloak, and the core's minefields will sudden-spawn to focus me even with an enemy ship right-bloody-there actually doing damage.)
so if you REALLY wanna be an aggro-tank, grab a Bortasque and do your aggro-tank on that-the NPC threat-gen on KDF ships must be **** sky-high...
Oh, interesting....is that what's going on with me on Brushfire and all those Son'a fighters and, uh, was it tricolbalt (?) projectiles? So funny...I could not get a hit in sideways at the dreadnought for all of those little things swarming me. LOL!
it was a little bit of a pain for me in my tact in a kor. but my sci character in a kdf commamd battle cruiser was another story. summoned enough pets to hold off the fighters than, because against pretty much all common sense my sci character's ship didn't have bfaw, basically just dueled the dreadnought for the rest of the episode. actually one of the most fun fights I've had in sto.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Yeah, when I did that on my gorn I'd pick out the biggest enemy ship then pound it to scrap and let the rest die as collateral damage. My fighter solution was to use TBR periodically. The fighters apparently weren't very tough.
funny story guys...this still happens a lot more than you would think.
Esp. with all that 'threat gen' stuff out there.
Take a Hegh'ta bird of prey, give it -threat consoles from the embassy, skill the captain into stealth, give it every threat-reducing thing you can find...
Now, decloak near a dedicated tanking cruiser.
you will guaranteed pull all his threat off him in PvE-and that's before you try to fire your weapons.
it's been like this for years., since we only had 3 STFs total.
literally all you h ave to do, is decloak, and you're suddenly belle-of-the-ball and all the bots wanna dance with you and nobody else.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Sounds like enemy starship crews are better trained in target selection than the average trinity-MMO monster. Exactly as it should be.
After all, a real person would shoot the BoP first, too.
funny story guys...this still happens a lot more than you would think.
Esp. with all that 'threat gen' stuff out there.
Take a Hegh'ta bird of prey, give it -threat consoles from the embassy, skill the captain into stealth, give it every threat-reducing thing you can find...
Now, decloak near a dedicated tanking cruiser.
you will guaranteed pull all his threat off him in PvE-and that's before you try to fire your weapons.
it's been like this for years., since we only had 3 STFs total.
literally all you h ave to do, is decloak, and you're suddenly belle-of-the-ball and all the bots wanna dance with you and nobody else.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Sounds like enemy starship crews are better trained in target selection than the average trinity-MMO monster. Exactly as it should be.
After all, a real person would shoot the BoP first, too.
Not in STO you don't - a BOP is insignificant in PvE.
The only time I'm NOT the belle of the ball in a run, is if there's another couple KDF out there. when it's me and four Feds? I'm pretty much screwed as soon as I decloak if I'm not moving at max defense. I've talked to a few others here and there in game-chat, and if they main KDF, a good portion of them have observed the same phenomena-it's one of those reasons runs seem to go smoother if there's at least three of us...but we're not good for your DPS parse if there ARE three of us, since the enemies will split up instead of concentrating fire.
If it only happens to KDF, then I would think that this is a bug. Either it's supposed to happen to all battlecloak users or not at all. The fact that it is singling out KDF players makes that seem unintended at all.
Now the next question is, how long will they fire at you? Is it permanent or can they draw aggro back from you?
As someone who thinks (and has been told) they play a very very competent and well designed PvE tank, I figured I should say a few things on it. "Who is this person?" For people who don't know who I am, I'm one of the last of the Aggronauts who fit the idea of what an Aggronaut should be; a proper Tank (draw aggro, with enough durability to survive the old HSE, because that was a thing). I've been doing this since about Delta Rising, with large success until S12.5 happened when FBP cheesing became a thing.
As well, I'm heavily invested into figuring out and understanding game mechanics (on a mathematical level), from damage boosts to hull and shield scaling. Part of this includes how threat against NPCs work.
From that alone I'm probably going to be ignored, but I'll say my peace anyway; tanking isnt a simple "Grab a cruiser, slot heals,
and fly around", its a much more complex idea that needs to be broken down into a few parts.
Aggression, aka Aggro
Aggro isnt a simple Shoot X because he has the highest threat scale idea. Threat and threat mechanics are based on a probability hierarchy, which in general means that players with higher threat scales take precedent over players with lower threat scales, but this isnt always the case. NPC's will general only change if the result of the damage incoming after threat modification has become a thing.
A really quick formula I use to determine the maximum level of damage a person can do before aggro is remove off them is:
(Damage Out of the DPSer) * (Threatscale of the DPSer) = (Damage out of the Tank) * (Threatscale of the Tank)
While this isn't a good or highly accurate equation, it is a good gauge of effectiveness. As an example, have the assumptions:
Tank does roughly 50k DPS
Tank has TS (plus node), AF, and 2 +th Consoles (200%+100%+300% for 600% threatscale, resulting in a threat mod of 7.0)
DPSer does roughly 100k DPS
DPSer has 2 Epic -th Consoles plus TS off and the threat node not choosen (for -150% Threatscale, resulting in a threat mod of 0.4)
The equation would give:
(Damage Out of the DPSer) * (Threatmod of the DPSer) = (Damage out of the Tank) * (Threatmod of the Tank)
(Damage Out of the DPSer) = (Damage out of the Tank) * (Threatmod of the Tank) / (Threatmodof the DPSer)
(Damage Out of the DPSer) = (50,000) * (7) / (0.4)
(Damage Out of the DPSer) = 875,000 = 875k
So we would expect the Tank to do Just fine. Unfortunately threat isnt always consistent like this, and things like who hits the target first, who has the most recorded kills (last hit before a target dies), who drains the most, who heals its allies the most, ect. all impact the way threatmods are calculated and adapted for. So if a DPSer gets alot of these things (high drain, has lots of last hit marks, throws heals out) then they will tend to have a larger threatmod.
As well, in order to have a part on an NPC's threat table, a person will need to hit a target atleast once. So if you never hit a target, it wont try to hit you. Some things like taunts will change this but for the most part this is an unbroken truth, which means that if a tank isnt use FAW or CSV, they cant really be called a tank.
A good method to above the equation above it to give +%threat for each 1000 dps (i.e. 1000 dps = +10% threat). the new mods would be 12 for the tank and 4.4 for the DPSer. Thus the tank will only be able to take a max of 136k, and might have struggle if the DPSer relies on burst damage (which would push them above this threshold). This is the most common result of a tank not being able to tank.
Durability and Damage
These are pretty self explanatory, but despite what most think you need to focus and balance both. A tank should be able to survive the map / queue / whatever they are fighting, but do the parts I explained above with Aggro a tank also needs to be able to deal damage. Without this second part, the tank becomes what most would call a Turtle: a ship which is over burdened by durability and survivability powers and consoles, and as a result has very little damage output.
Unfortunately, when most people talk about how 'tanky' a ship is or how good their 'tank' is, its usually just because the person has made a turtle, no real damage to speak of, and has no real ability to aggro large amounts of targets.
Thus a tank must carefully balance their ability to do damage as well as survive it. The best tanks are ones which have undergone hundreds of minor changes to all aspects, from BOff layouts to console layouts to DOffs and flying style, and even something less spoken about being tray layout (knowing where powers are on you're tray without looking can be a huge help if you need a heal RIGHT NOW, for instance). All of these things culminate in the tanks ability, both in aggro draw and survivability.
This does mean that all tanks are inherently glorified DPS ships, with trades for just enough for durability.
The Philosophy of a Tank
So with all of this, it should be clear what a tank tries to do; have enough damage to draw aggro off anyone else in their team and be able to survive it, because that's what tanks do. A noteworthy point is that tanks don't exist in PvP, and instead should be considered pressure DPS; something that if not dealt with will aid in overwhelming you, a threat that will be constant, and by focusing on will leave you vulnerable to the heavy hitters.
(Obviously this view of a PvP tank is mine and mine alone, and may vary from person to person)
A tank who reaches and tries to be a healer is no tank at all, and instead has usually sacrificed their ability to deal damage (thus loose aggro) for a secondary option of being a healer. Attempting to do to much at once can make a tank obsolete, and will ultimately fail.
The best tanks, in my opinion, are focused on three things:
Damage Output
Ability to Draw Aggro
Ability to Survive
A failing in any of these points will make a tank fail.
Controversy of a Tank
From what I've seen here, there seams to be a fair bit of debate of what a tanks role should be. I think that anyone telling you that what you want to do is wrong (which might seam ironic), however, understanding what a tank is and what it tires to do and how to build it lets you determine if a tank is a tank or not. And however people want to play is fine, but classing it as something its not can lead to dangerous ideas of what a build can do.
Obviously in the world of S13 tanking is harder (lower damage output and the uselessness of embassy consoles save for threat scale and the decision of it vs another universal for durability /damage is a problem) and thus the older tanks which relies only on FBP and embassy console to deal damage have been stripped of their ability to tank.
As well tanking isnt needed everywhere, things like ISA most assuredly don't need it, but I think tanking is fun and exciting and above all, challenging. While I would like to see the introduction of more tools tailored to tanks added, I think the idea of what a tank is needs to be further spread before that can happen.
These have just been my views on the subject, and as usual take this however you want, but this is a subject I have a great deal vested in, and a great deal of knowledge and experience.
--- @alcaatraz || I make tanks and do maths stuffs ---
Tanking in STO does exist and does work very well in premade team runs. Many a day i've been in HSE and wished we had a tank to draw aggro off us and it becomes quite obvious what they do when you realise at the end everyone died at least once or twice. In a tank run most of us would survive all the way through.
Me personally, i can't tank for TRIBBLE. I have no idea where to start and what to do but there are people who do know their stuff very well in our channel and with them on the team makes a big difference.
But the threat gen in STO is all to hell anyway, a single sci boat throwing a GW can create more aggro than an entire team of tanks, even something like a single torp spread can mess up a tank's style.
It's sooooo easy to get unwanted aggro but super hard to keep ALL the aggro.
The real problem i see is that traditionally the "tank" in agame was the big nasty looking hurty thing that you simply HAD to kill first to save the mission from failing. It was the one thing on the map everyone shot at first, regardless of how much damage it actually did. Mainly because it had the "potential" to cause damage, so common sense was to kill it first. In STO with PVE you need to persuade the game mobs that X ship in the big nasty one and they need to shoot it most. Trouble is that with threat broken the only way to do that is through doing more DPS, which is the only way to get attention. It shouldn't be that way, its clearly broken.
A tank should be able to use things like threatening stance, +threat consoles etc, to hold aggro; to look big and dangerous above ALL other targets.
Thank you, @alcaatraz . It's always nice to get an indepth report from those who are deeply and passionately invested.
I'm not sure if I agree on a point or two(likely due to different 'theaters of application'), but I can certainly respect your stance on it.
(Perhaps there's room for distinction between a 'tank' and a 'protector' of a fleet/squadron? I believe both are of equal value towards the same purpose - permitting allies to go all out without fear of destruction. However, calling them the same thing might be counter-productive towards future maturation of the craft.)
Now the next question is, how long will they fire at you? Is it permanent or can they draw aggro back from you?
They can draw aggro back.
It's been a long time since I've seen it as bad as @patrickngo describes. Last time I saw that, was in Khitemor Space Elite when the Borg still dropped proto-type tech you turned in for Omega gear. I was flying a Hehg'ta heavy BOP. I would decloak and hammer Donatra and she would hammer me back. So I would Brace for Impact and cloak. Then she would follow my little cloaked BOP for a minute or so while the rest of the team hammered on her. Then she would eventually turn and attack someone else.
Power creep is so high now that this rarely happens. Donatra is destroyed before she can even cloak (also, it's been years since I flew a Hegh'ta. D4x all the way).
Now the next question is, how long will they fire at you? Is it permanent or can they draw aggro back from you?
They can draw aggro back.
It's been a long time since I've seen it as bad as @patrickngo describes. Last time I saw that, was in Khitemor Space Elite when the Borg still dropped proto-type tech you turned in for Omega gear. I was flying a Hehg'ta heavy BOP. I would decloak and hammer Donatra and she would hammer me back. So I would Brace for Impact and cloak. Then she would follow my little cloaked BOP for a minute or so while the rest of the team hammered on her. Then she would eventually turn and attack someone else.
The problem with Donatra and other boss like targets in these kinds of situations is that they have their own targeting priorities, and don't really seam to care about threatscales at all, so if this is what they are describing, its not really useful or truthful or even realistic to base any conclusion about threat off it.
Post edited by alcaatraz on
--- @alcaatraz || I make tanks and do maths stuffs ---
funny story guys...this still happens a lot more than you would think.
Esp. with all that 'threat gen' stuff out there.
Take a Hegh'ta bird of prey, give it -threat consoles from the embassy, skill the captain into stealth, give it every threat-reducing thing you can find...
Now, decloak near a dedicated tanking cruiser.
you will guaranteed pull all his threat off him in PvE-and that's before you try to fire your weapons.
it's been like this for years., since we only had 3 STFs total.
literally all you h ave to do, is decloak, and you're suddenly belle-of-the-ball and all the bots wanna dance with you and nobody else.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Sounds like enemy starship crews are better trained in target selection than the average trinity-MMO monster. Exactly as it should be.
After all, a real person would shoot the BoP first, too.
Not in STO you don't - a BOP is insignificant in PvE.
The problem with Donatra and other boss like targets in these kinds of situations is that they have their own targeting priorities, and don't really seam to care about threatscales at all...
I've seen Borticus and crypticspartan weigh in on Threat threads before, and I do not recall them mentioning that bosses have different threat coding.
If they did, it would make tanks completely pointless since all your "threat gear and skills" are completely wasted on the targets you most likely want to tank.
The problem with Donatra and other boss like targets in these kinds of situations is that they have their own targeting priorities, and don't really seam to care about threatscales at all...
I've seen Borticus and crypticspartan weigh in on Threat threads before, and I do not recall them mentioning that bosses have different threat coding.
If they did, it would make tanks completely pointless since all your "threat gear and skills" are completely wasted on the targets you most likely want to tank.
Previous comment was eaten.
I only have years of experience in this field, so if you have a link to say that they don't I would be willing to read if you provided it.
(I know a player's word is less valued than a developer, and mine isnt valued much at all as it is.)
--- @alcaatraz || I make tanks and do maths stuffs ---
I also remember talk way back when about Bort wanting to make changes to Donatra because she did have, paraphrasing, super-secret-special AI behavior - including unique targeting/threat assessment routines that were different from regular mobs. I don't recall if that was during or after Branflake's time, but I want to say I remember the CM at the time was also contributing to the discussion.
While I am curious as to which exact boss mobs have unique behavior patterns/threat rules(I suspect the borg queen ship has a heavily customized AI, but what about more obscure things like Voth Citadel targeting priorities?), I also understand it's not something they are willing to talk much about.
funny story guys...this still happens a lot more than you would think.
Esp. with all that 'threat gen' stuff out there.
Take a Hegh'ta bird of prey, give it -threat consoles from the embassy, skill the captain into stealth, give it every threat-reducing thing you can find...
Now, decloak near a dedicated tanking cruiser.
you will guaranteed pull all his threat off him in PvE-and that's before you try to fire your weapons.
it's been like this for years., since we only had 3 STFs total.
literally all you h ave to do, is decloak, and you're suddenly belle-of-the-ball and all the bots wanna dance with you and nobody else.
'Tanking' has never been a factor in STO except in premade matches where the 'tank' is allowed to solo the entire mob.
Sounds like enemy starship crews are better trained in target selection than the average trinity-MMO monster. Exactly as it should be.
After all, a real person would shoot the BoP first, too.
Not in STO you don't - a BOP is insignificant in PvE.
A player BoP is not.
Actually, they are.
I'll add a proviso of assuming equal build and player quality across the team to the original statement, and maybe there could be a better choice of word than "insignificant", but when you run the numbers for a typical STF, the BOP barely constitutes a problem except to the one, possibly two, things it smashes to bits.
Comments
All Starfleet ships are categorized as explorers or science vessels (or not categorized at all), except the Defiant-class which got the euphemism "escort" that STO expands to all Starfleet tac ships. And they can all do pretty much everything.
By making Y and Z even better.
And then adding content where X just isn't good enough anymore.
But really, all I was trying to do was illustrate the point @mmps1 made even further. It's a computer game that doesn't take itself too seriously - you shouldn't try to apply Vulcan-tier logic on it.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
What manner of tanking is being referred to? There are multiple ways to 'tank' in STO(and ships usually run a mix of styles):
-Resistance (self-explanatory, stack resistances via consoles and boff/captain powers)
-Buffer/Active (high capacity and heal-boosting)
-Defense/Evasion (high levels of defense tend to function like resist tanking, in addition to a lot of simply not getting hit)
-Gimmick Cycling (spamming RSP, Immunity, clicky consoles, decoys, etc.)
I still have ships that can tank the fury of the badlands when 15~ players show up at a single point, just like they used to before the revamp(and my glass cannons still die horrible deaths in the same situation, like they used to).
If this is a discussion about threat generation.. you cannot, and never have been able to, draw aggro without dishing out damage. There are TONS of tools available now that can help you draw more aggro with less output now though. If only it had been as easy as it is now back when I started.. There is a threshold where raw damage output will supersede aggro gimmicks, but you have so many tools available these days that the only ships who can/should pull aggro off of you are the ones that (probably)won't need your help in the first place(that said, I WISH there were tanks that could keep up aggro with my torp Alita).
Furthermore, a paradigm shift might be in order if you're approaching tanking in STO like a traditional fantasy MMO. There is far too much AOE spammed these days to simply be able to take all the hits for your allies. As a 'Tank", your job is to mitigate the incoming damage while keeping your allies alive - you'll likely draw aggro in the process, but you're NEVER going to be the sole person taking damage. Suppression Barrage and Unstable Warp Bubble are excellent tanking tools. Likewise, Engineering/Science Fleet, Scattering Field, Protomatter Console, etc. are also excellent ways of protecting friendlies while drawing a lot of hate unto yourself. Conversely, AoE drain builds(especially shield drain) are also another source of high threat that help friendlies(including yourself) in the process.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying personal tanking is worthless(it's VERY important if you're running a high aggro setup), just that there is more to 'tanking' than simply being a "meatshield" - if you don't bring an 'Iron Umbrella' with you, you're not going to protect anyone.
Most of us here are referring to tanking in a PVE setting. Of that:
PVE tanking is a mix of threat generation (to draw fire away from allies) and surviving said threat. The above items you mentioned alone won't make an effective PVE tank in STO, since that would essentially be "turtling".
This is true. The rebalance pretty much targeted the meta prior to S13, which also happened to be high threat builds utilizing FBP and Embassy Consoles to increase their damage output. While in my opinion the changes were good for the overall state of the game, it did hit players who like to tank pretty hard.
While true, it's not that simple. Using +Th consoles now results in a DPS loss so that hinders your threat generation in a big way. Things like Threatening Stance is also used by many DPS builds for their cooldown management (via Attrition Warfare). Also, because of how proximity magnifies one's threat, "0-range" abilities (like GW, SSV, TR and "entity" based exotic damage skills) can TRIBBLE up threat generation unless you are using those skills yourself.
In the end, threat generation is not absolute, so no one really expects anyone to be able to draw all fire towards himself. Most tanks will be happy to draw in 70-80% of all attacks in an advanced map or 50-60% of the attacks-in on an Elite map.
I don't think anyone here is pushing for a trinity. I myself do not want the game to go towards that focus. But if any of you play in Elite space maps, you'll definitely see the benefits of having a really good threat tank or two with the team.
I've played with several really good tanks in the game and I appreciate the benefits they bring towards the team. As the team performance goes up, their job gets much harder. I am for giving them the tools to better keep up with high-end players both to keep them motivated and to keep the game fun for them.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Yes, we definitely let tanks go by themselves in STFs so that they can get all the aggro. /s
Truth is, whenever me and my friends know that a "real tank" is on a team during an STF, we go in harder and more aggressive than we normally would because we know that our team's tank will be able to attract and survive the majority of the incoming enemy fire.
For example, in a Hive Elite, if I know the tank is good, I can drop in a mega-GW at the start and draw all the spheres into one big clump for the team to take out knowing that those spheres won't be focusing on me. Or I can run Threat Stance on in an Escort and stick my nose right up to my targets with full stacks of Anchor and low HP for maximum damage without getting blown up. Or our team can safely park and shoot at Terok Nor to bring down its HP and ferry boarding parties with barely a scratch to get all the optionals done in a CPE. Or grab threat from the Vaadwaur in the Benthan stage of the new and improved Korfez to buy us some time in protecting the transports.
Yes tanks are not required in PVE, but they are useful. This is especially true in Elites.
And it is easy to see in parses how effective they are no matter what map we are in.
Right now, there are maybe 5 or so people that I can trust to really be able to grab that amount of aggro. Prior to S13 there were more of them (we even had a dedicated PVE tanking channel) but very few play their tanks post S13.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
funny thing is thats pretty much canon. see just about every time a klingon decloaks in tng. klingons scare pretty much everyone.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Oh, interesting....is that what's going on with me on Brushfire and all those Son'a fighters and, uh, was it tricolbalt (?) projectiles? So funny...I could not get a hit in sideways at the dreadnought for all of those little things swarming me. LOL!
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
it was a little bit of a pain for me in my tact in a kor. but my sci character in a kdf commamd battle cruiser was another story. summoned enough pets to hold off the fighters than, because against pretty much all common sense my sci character's ship didn't have bfaw, basically just dueled the dreadnought for the rest of the episode. actually one of the most fun fights I've had in sto.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
My character Tsin'xing
After all, a real person would shoot the BoP first, too.
Not in STO you don't - a BOP is insignificant in PvE.
If it only happens to KDF, then I would think that this is a bug. Either it's supposed to happen to all battlecloak users or not at all. The fact that it is singling out KDF players makes that seem unintended at all.
Now the next question is, how long will they fire at you? Is it permanent or can they draw aggro back from you?
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
"Who is this person?" For people who don't know who I am, I'm one of the last of the Aggronauts who fit the idea of what an Aggronaut should be; a proper Tank (draw aggro, with enough durability to survive the old HSE, because that was a thing). I've been doing this since about Delta Rising, with large success until S12.5 happened when FBP cheesing became a thing.
As well, I'm heavily invested into figuring out and understanding game mechanics (on a mathematical level), from damage boosts to hull and shield scaling. Part of this includes how threat against NPCs work.
From that alone I'm probably going to be ignored, but I'll say my peace anyway; tanking isnt a simple "Grab a cruiser, slot heals,
and fly around", its a much more complex idea that needs to be broken down into a few parts.
Aggression, aka Aggro
Aggro isnt a simple Shoot X because he has the highest threat scale idea. Threat and threat mechanics are based on a probability hierarchy, which in general means that players with higher threat scales take precedent over players with lower threat scales, but this isnt always the case. NPC's will general only change if the result of the damage incoming after threat modification has become a thing.
A really quick formula I use to determine the maximum level of damage a person can do before aggro is remove off them is:
While this isn't a good or highly accurate equation, it is a good gauge of effectiveness. As an example, have the assumptions:
The equation would give:
So we would expect the Tank to do Just fine. Unfortunately threat isnt always consistent like this, and things like who hits the target first, who has the most recorded kills (last hit before a target dies), who drains the most, who heals its allies the most, ect. all impact the way threatmods are calculated and adapted for. So if a DPSer gets alot of these things (high drain, has lots of last hit marks, throws heals out) then they will tend to have a larger threatmod.
As well, in order to have a part on an NPC's threat table, a person will need to hit a target atleast once. So if you never hit a target, it wont try to hit you. Some things like taunts will change this but for the most part this is an unbroken truth, which means that if a tank isnt use FAW or CSV, they cant really be called a tank.
A good method to above the equation above it to give +%threat for each 1000 dps (i.e. 1000 dps = +10% threat). the new mods would be 12 for the tank and 4.4 for the DPSer. Thus the tank will only be able to take a max of 136k, and might have struggle if the DPSer relies on burst damage (which would push them above this threshold). This is the most common result of a tank not being able to tank.
Durability and Damage
These are pretty self explanatory, but despite what most think you need to focus and balance both. A tank should be able to survive the map / queue / whatever they are fighting, but do the parts I explained above with Aggro a tank also needs to be able to deal damage. Without this second part, the tank becomes what most would call a Turtle: a ship which is over burdened by durability and survivability powers and consoles, and as a result has very little damage output.
Unfortunately, when most people talk about how 'tanky' a ship is or how good their 'tank' is, its usually just because the person has made a turtle, no real damage to speak of, and has no real ability to aggro large amounts of targets.
Thus a tank must carefully balance their ability to do damage as well as survive it. The best tanks are ones which have undergone hundreds of minor changes to all aspects, from BOff layouts to console layouts to DOffs and flying style, and even something less spoken about being tray layout (knowing where powers are on you're tray without looking can be a huge help if you need a heal RIGHT NOW, for instance). All of these things culminate in the tanks ability, both in aggro draw and survivability.
This does mean that all tanks are inherently glorified DPS ships, with trades for just enough for durability.
The Philosophy of a Tank
So with all of this, it should be clear what a tank tries to do; have enough damage to draw aggro off anyone else in their team and be able to survive it, because that's what tanks do. A noteworthy point is that tanks don't exist in PvP, and instead should be considered pressure DPS; something that if not dealt with will aid in overwhelming you, a threat that will be constant, and by focusing on will leave you vulnerable to the heavy hitters.
(Obviously this view of a PvP tank is mine and mine alone, and may vary from person to person)
A tank who reaches and tries to be a healer is no tank at all, and instead has usually sacrificed their ability to deal damage (thus loose aggro) for a secondary option of being a healer. Attempting to do to much at once can make a tank obsolete, and will ultimately fail.
The best tanks, in my opinion, are focused on three things:
A failing in any of these points will make a tank fail.
Controversy of a Tank
From what I've seen here, there seams to be a fair bit of debate of what a tanks role should be. I think that anyone telling you that what you want to do is wrong (which might seam ironic), however, understanding what a tank is and what it tires to do and how to build it lets you determine if a tank is a tank or not. And however people want to play is fine, but classing it as something its not can lead to dangerous ideas of what a build can do.
Obviously in the world of S13 tanking is harder (lower damage output and the uselessness of embassy consoles save for threat scale and the decision of it vs another universal for durability /damage is a problem) and thus the older tanks which relies only on FBP and embassy console to deal damage have been stripped of their ability to tank.
As well tanking isnt needed everywhere, things like ISA most assuredly don't need it, but I think tanking is fun and exciting and above all, challenging. While I would like to see the introduction of more tools tailored to tanks added, I think the idea of what a tank is needs to be further spread before that can happen.
These have just been my views on the subject, and as usual take this however you want, but this is a subject I have a great deal vested in, and a great deal of knowledge and experience.
Me personally, i can't tank for TRIBBLE. I have no idea where to start and what to do but there are people who do know their stuff very well in our channel and with them on the team makes a big difference.
But the threat gen in STO is all to hell anyway, a single sci boat throwing a GW can create more aggro than an entire team of tanks, even something like a single torp spread can mess up a tank's style.
It's sooooo easy to get unwanted aggro but super hard to keep ALL the aggro.
The real problem i see is that traditionally the "tank" in agame was the big nasty looking hurty thing that you simply HAD to kill first to save the mission from failing. It was the one thing on the map everyone shot at first, regardless of how much damage it actually did. Mainly because it had the "potential" to cause damage, so common sense was to kill it first. In STO with PVE you need to persuade the game mobs that X ship in the big nasty one and they need to shoot it most. Trouble is that with threat broken the only way to do that is through doing more DPS, which is the only way to get attention. It shouldn't be that way, its clearly broken.
A tank should be able to use things like threatening stance, +threat consoles etc, to hold aggro; to look big and dangerous above ALL other targets.
I'm not sure if I agree on a point or two(likely due to different 'theaters of application'), but I can certainly respect your stance on it.
(Perhaps there's room for distinction between a 'tank' and a 'protector' of a fleet/squadron? I believe both are of equal value towards the same purpose - permitting allies to go all out without fear of destruction. However, calling them the same thing might be counter-productive towards future maturation of the craft.)
It's been a long time since I've seen it as bad as @patrickngo describes. Last time I saw that, was in Khitemor Space Elite when the Borg still dropped proto-type tech you turned in for Omega gear. I was flying a Hehg'ta heavy BOP. I would decloak and hammer Donatra and she would hammer me back. So I would Brace for Impact and cloak. Then she would follow my little cloaked BOP for a minute or so while the rest of the team hammered on her. Then she would eventually turn and attack someone else.
Power creep is so high now that this rarely happens. Donatra is destroyed before she can even cloak (also, it's been years since I flew a Hegh'ta. D4x all the way).
The problem with Donatra and other boss like targets in these kinds of situations is that they have their own targeting priorities, and don't really seam to care about threatscales at all, so if this is what they are describing, its not really useful or truthful or even realistic to base any conclusion about threat off it.
If they did, it would make tanks completely pointless since all your "threat gear and skills" are completely wasted on the targets you most likely want to tank.
Previous comment was eaten.
I only have years of experience in this field, so if you have a link to say that they don't I would be willing to read if you provided it.
(I know a player's word is less valued than a developer, and mine isnt valued much at all as it is.)
While I am curious as to which exact boss mobs have unique behavior patterns/threat rules(I suspect the borg queen ship has a heavily customized AI, but what about more obscure things like Voth Citadel targeting priorities?), I also understand it's not something they are willing to talk much about.
Actually, they are.
I'll add a proviso of assuming equal build and player quality across the team to the original statement, and maybe there could be a better choice of word than "insignificant", but when you run the numbers for a typical STF, the BOP barely constitutes a problem except to the one, possibly two, things it smashes to bits.